Massachusetts just swore in their new legislature, and it’s vowing to take up gun control. You’d think there wouldn’t be much more they can do in Massachusetts, since they’ve long had an assault weapons ban and magazine restrictions, but as we’ve seen from Illinois, the end game is prohibition on as many classes of firearms they can get away with.

Not unexpected, Connecticut is talking gun control for 2013 too. The first wave of attacks will come in the blue states that already have pretty awful gun laws, and have largely already beaten gun owners into the dirt and made them politically irrelevant. It should be noted that these states previously formed the basis for federal legislation. There is no writing off this state or that state. We fight the best we can. Take this example from someone in Illinois:

I live in Illinois and am getting ready to go to Springfield for the next day or two to see what I can do. My legislators are both on our side but I intend to visit the office of every legislator and let them know personally how opposed I am to this. If you learn of any rallies that may develop in Springfield or know of any way I can help in Springfield, let me know…

This is highly effective, and to anyone reading in Illinois, if you can take the time off work and drive to Springfield, do it. Showing up in person and chatting personally with lawmakers is the most effective form of communication. We’ve already made a lot of compromises in Illinois. There’s full licensing of gun owners. In many ways they are a gun control paradise. They are ranked ninth in the nation by the Brady Campaign. Yet it’s not enough. Massachusetts, which has strict and discretionary licensing to own pistols, and a general assault weapons and magazine bans, apparently has not gone far enough. We know the end game, and anyone who says the end game isn’t prohibition is fooling themselves, and I would not count on the courts to save us.

21 Responses to “Other Fronts Moving”

Just emailed my legislators here in MA. My rep is GOAL endorsed and has co-sponsored GOAL bills in the past. My senator doesn’t have a GOAL rating and hasn’t responded to my emails in the past, so I’m not sure where she stands. We’ve been able to kill bad bills in committee so far since she’s been in office.

The people who probably know the LEAST about firearms in the country are the ones who are deciding what we do and do not need for anything from hunting to self defense. It’s sickening, but nothing new for D.C.

If Illinois politicians really wanted to do something about gun violence, they’d set some cops to scanning social media for convicts violating parole. I suspect they could easily net 4-5 a week in Chicago alone — and that the city’s murder rate would plummet as a result.

However, that would result in arrests of people the politicians favor, not of middle-class white men, so it will never happen.

And what happens next year when the antis turn around and say rifle murder in CT are up 26 fold from the previous year? And then use it to justify the bans on the tool that committed them. Murders by rifle are up 2600%, “Something must be done!”.

Note that the other states mentioned aren’t all bad, e.g. Connecticut has de jure shall issue and some rural parts of Massachusetts are said to as well (it’s done city by city, there are no unincorporated parts of the state and counties are vestigial and in one major case abolished).

But, yeah, we shouldn’t be surprised by taking hits in anti-gun states, but I’m not at all certain they’re going to infect other states. That wasn’t true after the last case like this, the ’89 Stockton school yard shooting that got “assault weapons” bans on the table. California firmly turned anti-gun with that if they weren’t already, but that was baked in the cake, and I’m not aware of another state that passed an AW ban that wasn’t from the usual suspects.

Heck, outside of Connecticut, are they any states with both an AW ban and shall issue? I.e. are we talking about more than those 8 states and Connecticut?

It almost looks like Sandy Hook was a planned event to kick off the post election gun grab. I poo-poo conspiracy talk, but this is getting to be a pretty big push. Too big, and too much of a swing in the previous direction to be an uncoordinated assault on gun rights. Was that shooting our Reichstag fire?

I doubt it. The timing was wrong. If they really wanted it to be a Reichstag fire, they would have timed it for, say, tomorrow. As it is, by occurring just before Christmas, there was no way to get legislation introduced while the shock and horror were at their peak, and many people have stopped reacting emotionally and started thinking.

If it had happened tomorrow, there would have been a good chance of getting a bill introduced and voted on over the weekend while emotions were still running high, and before our side could get ready to counter it. Instead, we’ve had a chance to sound the alarm, give our Senators and Representatives preliminary notice that no “compromise” will be tolerated, and get people ready for the legislative fight that’s coming.

I wish there was something I could do to help u guys in the blue states, but I doubt my calling one of ur elected officials would have any impact. The left probably won’t get much or anything through the U.S. house, but the states are a different story entirely.